A union-affiliated trust fund set up to pay medical expenses for Chrysler Group LLC retirees said that its ownership stake in the U.S. auto maker was worth $3.6 billion at the end of 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The current value of the trust's 41.5 percent stake in Chrysler is at the heart of a continuing battle between the fund's managers and Chrysler majority owner Fiat SpA. The UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust took the stake in Chrysler as part of the U.S. auto maker's 2009 bankruptcy, but is now eager to divest its holdings to pay for retiree health care benefits. The trust said that the value of its Chrysler shares gained about $900 million in 2012. That gain helped drive an 18 percent increase in the fund's overall assets, which were $10.3 billion by the year's end, according to a 2012 financial statement on the U.S. Department of Labor website.
